@Rebirth Player : Evening all! A lot of updates this week.
First, as a reminder. Our Halloween event is wrapping up on the NEXT reset (11/7/2021). So this is the last chance to get those salvage and trade them in for the extra slot or for extra All Hallows Eve superpacks. Speaking of which...
As a holiday bonus, I went ahead and gave all accounts five BONUS packs of All Hallows Eve for logging in the last week. You can see them on your "Special" salvage tab in the inventory screen as shown below. (These will be on the LAST character you logged in with.) Simply double click or right click on it and it should open. Anyone not getting them... be honest... can send a PPD Drone DM and we'll grant you them.
@GM Loriean has also asked me to remind you that our spelling bee contests are still going. There are over EIGHTY tickets that I'm going to be sorting through and running through a spell and syntax check before pushing them out to PTS and then live. Loriean will be back with the full count later on.
And lastly, the weekly counts. This week 564 :paragon: point tokens were given out for those that log in on the weekly basis. And due to the calendar adjusting as mentioned by @erpmario last time... 860 ADDITIONAL :paragon: tokens were also given out to make up for the faulty distribution of them. Going forward, we should be back on our normal four-week (28 day) distribution schedule.
That's all for this week. I hope everyone had a safe holiday. Until next week, happy hunting.
Afternoon everyone, hope all is well. This afternoon I was made aware of a bug regarding the tallying of the Paragon Points given to new accounts. Evidently we were supposed to be giving out EIGHT Paragon Points to each new account but AccountServer was still only granting five. I tracked down the configuration file needed to adjust it and will be making the adjustment on Sunday/Monday during our normal reset. After Sunday's reset, all NEW accounts will be granted the eight paragon points while all (Yes, ALL) current accounts will be granted a +3 bonus. (This +3 will be on top of the normal reset grants.)
You will see these totals reflected on Monday AFTER the reset has concluded.
During our Spring 2021 State of the Game announcement, we listen to the community about the challenging game grind and economic scarcity of salvage and recipes. In this update we work to address this in several ways. A common theme of the economy and grind overhaul is to reward players for engaging in multiple styles and areas of gameplay. This focuses on better rewarding players within a particular area of gameplay based on the theme or specialization in that area of the game. Here's what's in store.
Gameplay
Reward Merits
A sneak preview was released back in Rebirth Issue 1 Editon 1 where we significantly discounted many of the items in various merit vendors. For Rebirth Issue 2 we've standardized the discount at a 40% reduction from sunset costs across all merit vendors. In most cases, this means even greater merit cost reductions, though a few costs have increased. Expect the following in general:
On Live, three and four stat recipes often cost the most merits. Their prices have been standardized under the lowest costing recipe in their set and received the same 40% discount. Special or Proc recipes are now the only recipe worth more in a given set as previewed during Ri1e1. Their prices from Live are discounted and approach a 40% discount most of the time. This lowered the price of PvP recipes in the Empyrean Merit vendor. We added both Very Rare (Purple) Recipes and PvP Recipes to the Reward Merit and Astral Merit Vendors. Influence costs for recipes and enhancements received up to a 40% discount across all merit vendors. We removed all attuned enhancement purchase lockouts from vendors preventing players from buying more than 1 item every few days.
Merit Vendor Changes:
IO Recipe Type
Reward Merits Cost
Astral Merit Cost
Empyrean Merit Cost
Uncommon Normal
50 30
N/A
N/A
Uncommon Special
75-125 60
N/A
N/A
Rare Normal
125-165 75
16 12
N/A
Rare Special
200-220 125
32 18
N/A
Purple Normal
N/A 300 & 22.5m Inf.
N/A 90
40 12
Purple Special
N/A 375 & 28.125m Inf.
N/A 112
40 14
PVPIO Normal
N/A 400 & 30m Inf.
N/A 240
50-60 32
PVPIO Special
N/A 500 & 40m Inf.
N/A 315
60-70 42
Exemplar and Recipe Drop Improvements: - While exemplared, level 50 characters receive a chance for level 50 recipe rewards for defeating enemies. - Increased drop pool chances for Very Rare recipe rolls from 1% to 2.5%. Loot Boosters double the percent chances. NOTE: Chances of drops have not increased, just the odds of the roll being Very Rare within those drops. - Removed 20-hour lockout from Enhancement Catalysts drops. - Temp power recipe drops reduced 10x. Note: Does not affect Amplifier drops.
Endgame Content and Endgame Character Build Synergy
While completing endgame content we want players to also be progressing on their endgame character builds. Therefore we have included features that enable players to more easily accomplish both goals at the same time.
Astral and Empyrean Merit Bonuses
- Very Rare recipes receive a 2x bonus cost reduction. - Rare recipes receive a 40% bonus cost reduction (Astral Vendor). - All recipe lockout timers have been removed.
Incarnate Trials and Incarnate Content (Dark Astoria): - Endgame content receives a 2x bonus drop pool chance for Very Rare recipe rolls. Loot Boosters double the percent chances. NOTE: Chances of drops have not increased, just the odds of the roll being Very Rare within those drops. - Reward Choices for completing Incarnate content now offers a choice for a random Purple Recipe instead of Super Inspirations when receiving a Very Rare reward. - Added a recipe to break down Notices of the Well into an Uncommon Thread Material. - Added Shard Recipes for Tier 1 Incarnate abilities of Destiny, Lore, Interface, Incarnate, and Hybrid. - Team Member will now be granted progress on weekly Dark Astoria Arcs. This applies to Flashbacks as well. - The Dark Astoria contact, Gabriel, now rewards a Rare or Very Rare incarnate material in addition to Empyrean merits.
Dark Astoria - Increased mob experience by 25%. - Added a reward option to Ephram Sha and Maharaj for 2 incarnate thread's worth of iXP split between Physical and Psychic on first obtaining. It will then have a 20 hour cooldown in which you will only be able to obtain 1 incarnate thread's worth of iXP. This option also gives half of said value to Advanced Psychic (aka Hybrid slots unlock). - Arc Completion Incarnate Merit option increased from 2/1 to 4/2. - Changed chances of Astral/Empyrean Merits on Arc Completion Rewards from 80/20 to 60/40. - Taskmaster Gabriel now gives 4 Empyrean merits instead of 2.
"Master of" Task/Strike Forces Rewards
Successfully completing any Master of Task Force will reward 1 random Very Rare recipe. NOTE: You can only obtain this reward once every 60 hours for a given "Master of" completion.
Hamidon Origin Enhancements
Hamidon (The Hive): - The reward choice for defeating Hamidon has been increased from 1 to 3 random Hamidon enhancements. - The 24-hour reward lockout has been reduced to 30 minutes.
Seed of Hamidon (First Ward Zone Event): - Defeating Seed of Hamidon rewards 1 random Hamidon enhancement.
Alignment System and Merit Improvements
For earning alignment-specific merits, we want players to be reward with unique power-ups that virtually no other area of the game currently offers. Here's what’s in store for them.
- Hero & Villain Super Packs and Vigilante & Rogue Super Packs will be purchasable with Alignment Merits. - Vigilante and Rogue Alignment Merits have been added. Places where they previously earned Reward Merits will now earn Vigilante/Rogue Merits instead. This goes for Hero and Villains too, where Reward Merits were initially given instead of their own alignment merits. - One Hero, Villain, Vigilante, or Rogue Merit will be awarded during the first alignment change/reinforcement respective to the chosen alignment. - Hero and Villain Super Packs will cost 6 Hero/Villain Merits or 10 Rogue/Vigilante Merits. - Vigilante & Rogue Super Packs will cost 6 Vigilante/Rogue Merits or 10 Hero/Villain Merits. - Reduce the number of Alignment Tip missions to receive a Morality Tip mission from 10 to 5. - Public Fame points now expire in 20 minutes, allowing for faster progression. Note: These changes allow much faster side-switching for players to join their friends, earn alignment merits, or experience other content. To balance the reduced number of missions required to earn alignment merits, alignment vendor costs were returned to their sunset values.
Gladiator Merits and PvP Vendors
Lifelong PvPers can rejoice as we have introduced a reward system into PvP so that you can, if you so choose, work towards your character build entirely through PvPing. PvP remains the fastest way to earn PvP recipes and you can now earn any other recipe through the introduction of the new Gladiator Merit.
- Defeating a Player with Rep rewards 5 Gladiator Merits. - Defeating a player without Rep has a chance to reward 1 Gladiator Merit.
In addition to defeating players, Gladiator Merits are now obtainable for completing the following PvP zone events: - Bloody Bay: Shivan Pet Reward - 7 Gladiator Merits - Warburg: Code Event Reward - 15 Gladiator Merits - RV: Hero/Villain Reach 1k Mech Pet Reward - 50 Gladiator Merits
- Removed the PvP recipe lockout for defeating a player with Rep. Note: You cannot earn Rep from defeating the same player with 5-minutes. As is how Rep works. - PvP recipes received a 4x drop chance bonus for defaulting a player with Rep. - Loot Boosters double the chances that a PvP recipe could drop.
Inspirations Abound
Dual Inspirations have a very small chance to drop from PvPing.
Super Inspirations have a very small chance to drop from Elite Bosses and Archvillains in Incarnate Content.
Team Inspirations have a chance to drop while Teaming. The size and chance of these drops follow the game's natural progression/reward system.
Dual Team Inspirations have a chance to drop from PvPing while Teaming. The size and chance of these drops follow the game's natural progression/reward system.
And also... - Dual, Super, and Team Inspirations are now tradable. - Dual, Super, and Team Inspirations now last 60 seconds like all other Inspirations. - Added HotKey "C" to the Inspiration combine menu.
Souped Up Super Packs
We've reworked Super Pack rewards a bit to serve better rewards and require less in-combat "email" management. - Very Rare Cards now have a chance to reward a Very Rare Attuned Enhancement. This replaced the odds of a Very Rare rewarding another ATO. - ATOs have a much higher chance of rewarding in Rare cards. - Added BrainStorm Ideas cards. They come in three varieties: common (20x), uncommon (40x), and rare (60x). - Inspirations Cards have been removed in favor of the new in-game inspiration drops. - Other reward cards (not listed above) that overlapped in rarity from common to very rare have been reworked in lower tiers to make room for the Rare/Very Rare odds improvement. They should now appear in the common and uncommon card tiers in a more desirable pattern while appearing less to never in rare and very rare. Noteworthy exclusions to this are Reward Merits, Experienced, XP Booster, and Catalysts. These cards can appear in any rarity and have been excluded from the change. - Hero/Villain and Vigilante/Rogue Super Packs can be sold on the auction house like the Winter Super Pack. - Added icons to the Winter Super Pack.
Attuned Enhancements
Made Very Rare attuned enhancements received from Super Packs tradable. Added icons to Winter IOs.
Architect Entertainment Increased AE Ticket cap from 9,999 to 99,999.
Conversion Sets Added conversion sets for Very Rare Attuned Enhancements. Added conversion sets for Universal Damage Enhancements.
Gameworld
Striga Island:
Atmospheric update made to this unique zone inspired by the horror and war comics of the 20th century.
Task Forces:
Lowered the minimum Task Force size to 4 players. Task Forces with lower than 4 player minimums remain the same.
Vigilante and Rogue Alignment Vendors:
Vigilante Merit Vendor has been added to Kings Row
Rogue Merit Vendor has been added to Cap Au Diable
Gladiator Vendors:
Hero and Villain Gladiator Vendors have been added to Recluse's Victory, Warburg, Siren's Call and Bloody Bay
Powers & ATs
Guardian ATOs have arrived!
Guardian's Gift and Absolute Resolution are the Series 1 and Series 2 Archetype Origin Enhancements for Guardian. Each set features unique abilities tailored to the archetype that walks between Melee, Ranged, Armor, and Support. Here's some of what you'll find.
Guardian's Gift: Recharge/PBAoE Resolve UNIQUE -- No more than 1 enhancement of this type may be slotted by a character. This enhancement boosts the effectiveness of Resolve. While attacking the power slotted with this enhancement has a chance to trigger a PBAoE Resolve around the caster, even if the foe has not yet been defeated. Additionally, this effect stacks with other Resolve effects. This power effect can stack Resolve up to 4 times. Additionally, this enhancement reduces recharge time by X%. This enhancement can only be slotted by Guardians and may be slotted into any of their damage powers.
Absolute Resolution: Recharge/Chance for Energy Damage Bonus UNIQUE -- No more than 1 enhancement of this type may be slotted by a character. This enhancement gives the slotted power a chance to inflict moderate energy damage when you have Resolve. The energy damage from Absolute Resolution increases by 30% with each stack of Resolve on the caster. Additionally, this enhancement reduces recharge time by X%. This enhancement can only be slotted by Guardians and may be slotted into any of their damage powers.
Tanker Touch-up:
Tanks will now enjoy a unique aggro cap of 25 mobs, outclassing all other ATs in their ability to herd and hold aggro.
Tankers' inherent Bruising ability has been expanded to the second attack in their powersets as well, giving Tanks more option to use bruising debuffs on their foes!
New Power Sets:
Military Assault (Guardian): Your mastery of Military Assault allows you to destroy your enemies with brutal precision. Blast your foes with powerful attacks from your military grade Assault Rifle and pummel them with brutal close quarters combat techniques. Your attacks can also inflict a variety of debilitating effects on your foes, including stunning them, reducing their defense, knocking them down, or slowing their movement.
Ninja Assault (Guardian): Your mastery of the ways of Ninja Assault allows you to dispatch opponents with lethal grace, cutting down foes with the razor edge of your Ninja Blade and delivering death from afar with throwing knives. Your attacks often carry additional poison damage over time, and can also knock opponents down or reduce their defense.
Infiltrator Training (Guardian): You have superb training as an Infiltrator. Your intrusion skills allow you to deftly evade attacks and move behind enemy lines unseen, while your weapons training gives you mastery of a variety of debilitating tools and gadgets to wreak havoc on your unsuspecting foes.
Water Control (Controller and Dominator): You have total control over the power of water. Water Control grants you superior control over large groups and the ability to deal a good amount of damage to single targets. Your powers have a chance to inflict Drowning on a target, while under this effect, Deluge, Suffocate, Hypothermia, Turbulent Aura and Tidal Wave will deal more damage and these powers' secondary effects are enhanced.
Kinetic Assault (Guardians and Dominator): Through manipulation of latent energy present all around you, you create powerful blasts and forceful blows that can prove devastating to your opponents. As you manipulate this energy, you will accumulate Impulse. Each stack of Impulse grants you a scaling recharge buff. Impulse is also used to empower Disrupting Torrent, Kinetic Shockwave, Energetic Strike and Mass Driver.
Power QoL:
Energy Melee (Tanker, Brute, Stalker, and Blaster): Total Focus: animation has been sped up, reducing its animation time from 3.3s to 2.2s. This affects all player versions of the following powers: Total Focus, Tremor, Thunder Strike, and Incandescent Strike.
Stun has been changed to Staggering Burst, a new power with the following effect: - Now a Melee(AoE) power with 8' radius - Change Invention set category from Melee to Melee(AoE) - Smashing Damage Scale increase from .25 to 1.15 - Energy Damage Scale increase from .17 to .81 - Recharge change from 20 seconds to 16 seconds - Endurance Cost change from 10.19 to 15.19 - Guaranteed mag 3 stun on main target, 30% chance to mag 3 stun on AoE
Whirling Hands: Increased Smashing and Energy damage 20%. (Tanker, Brute, and Stalker)
Archery (Blaster, Defender, and Corruptor): - Rain of Arrows: Animation time reduced from 4.0s to 2.0s. Damage delay reduced from 1.37s to 0.67s. - Explosive Arrow: Damage changed from scale 0.6 lethal + 0.3 smashing to scale 0.3 lethal + 0.3 smashing + 0.3 fire, so that the power can now light Oil Slick Arrow.
Bomb Attacks (Blaster, Defender, and Corruptor): Force Field, Repulsion Bomb and Radiation Blast, Neutron Bomb: Unified both powers to use the faster Repulsion Bomb version of the animation, and corrected the erroneous mismatches between activation time and animation length for both powers. This shortens the activation time of both powers to 1.47s, and affects all player versions of these powers.
Explosive Shuriken (Blaster, Defender, and Corruptor): Scrapper and Stalker Weapon Mastery, Exploding Shuriken: Radius corrected from 10 feet to 15 feet and max targets increased from 10 to 16 - this power was balanced incorrectly relative to other APP TAoEs.
Power Customization:
New Alternate Animations:
Energy Blast - Energy Torrent Bright & Dark Shoulder Animations Bright & Dark Palm Animations Bright & Dark Ground Punch Animations Bright & Dark Stomp Animations Martial Combat - Eagles Claw Bright & Dark Face Smasher Martial Combat - Ki Punch Bright & Dark Ki Strike Martial Combat - Storm Kick Bright & Dark Gut Punch Bright & Dark Heavy Blow Electric Melee - Jacob's Ladder Bright & Dark Charge Bolt
Dark Blast, Dark Melee, Dark Assault, Dark Control, Dark Armor, Dark Miasma, and Dark Composition can now choose from the following themes:
- Skull Theme - Skull Alt Theme - No Skull Theme - No Skull Alt Theme - Soul Noir Theme - Soul Noir Alt Theme
New Emotes:
Dab (/e dab): A new pose for players to show off just how cool they are.
Stoic (/e stanceheroic3 or /e stoic):
Cosmetics
Asym Torsos Are Here for Female Characters!
This deep systems renovation has made it finally possible for City of Heroes player models to have asymmetric chest and hip patterns! Our intent was to design a system that is seamless with the familiar CoH character design experience. Every place you can set a chest or hip pattern you should now be able to access asymmetric chest and hip options.
Dozens of new asym specific patterns added to hips and chests.
All with left and right variants where appropriate. Many with matching top and bottom options!
Single Panel Tights for Females!
A longstanding request by many players dating back to Paragon Live servers, Single Panel Tights offers players a more modest, classic look for their female characters.
This new geometry has a full library of base textures, pattern masks, and carefully ported, conformed, and weighted chest details, including many familiar options.
Integrated Tights:
Rebirth Issue 2 introduces a powerful new tool, guaranteed to up your CoH costume game!
Integrated tights can be found within the base texture section of the chest and hips tights. The sub-selections allows for unprecedented control with these compound textures.
You can then use any pattern, symmetric or asymmetric, to decorate either the over garment or the undertights!
Full color control over the non patterned region of the texture!
Mix and match settings and choose from a wide library of integrated options to make your most sophisticated CoH costumes yet!
Bodysuits, catsuits, and unitards:
A renovation of the legacy CoH pants section has opened up a variety of new options for contiguous full-body outfits!
Jodhpurs and bell bottoms:
Pay homage to bygone eras with two new historically inspired lower body geometries, the golden age jodhpur pants and the 1970's bell bottoms!
Upper Body Details from Yikes:
Cross server costume artist Yikes has shared much of his work, including hoodies, off the shoulder shirts, blindfolds, and ninja wear that can be found throughout the costume library--including in a new category of upper body details now found in many chest sections.
What about Male and Huge characters?
You have no doubt noticed that Rebirth Issue 2 has a ton of new options for female characters. And we bet you are asking, "But what about male and huge characters?"
Fear not! These options are coming in future updates. Up next will be a full male asym revamp, complete with their own integrated tights, bell bottoms, jodhpurs, and more!
We're just as excited to see this system roll out to the other two character models as you are!
...but wait, that's not all! We have one more suprise in store.
Oodles of new emblems!
40 new standard chest symbols and a CoH first introducing 42 glowing and animated variants.
Glowing symbols can be found in their own subsection just after standard symbols.
Quality Of Life
UI:
- Power trays can be locked to their current numerical value. This does not affect their position.
Player zone cap - Max player cap for "The Hive" has been increased to 100
- Max player cap for "Rikti War Zone" has been increased to 75
Bug Fixes
- Blaster now have their 2400 stat improvements to Blaster’s Max HP and ToHit. - Winter Super Pack Candy Canes now reward the correct amount. (5 per claim instead of 1) - Fixed a bug that caused some Elite Bosses recipe drops to have an 8% drop chance instead of 12%. - Low level Vhazilok escort mission involving a doctor and his beloved fridge should now be complete-able (mission is usually assigned from one of multiple contacts in the 15-20 range). - Mayor Devito's copy of H.P. Lovecrafts "The Color of Outer Space" has been arrested for speeding. - Fixed Black Swan's costume. - Martial Mastery: Stalkers may now slot War Cry with Accuracy. - AH slash command should no longer be accessible from tutorial zones. - Player difficulty slash command should now only accept numbers within their expected ranges.
Power bug fixes:
-Blaster Darkness Manipulation, Touch of the Beyond: Now is correctly typed as a ranged attack rather than melee, and no longer ignores range buffs since it is a ranged attack. No longer accepts Blaster ATO sets, since it does not deal damage. -Blaster Electricity Manipulation, Force of Thunder: Now accepts Endurance Modification and Healing IO sets. -Blaster Fire Manipulation, Cauterizing aura: Now accepts Endurance Modification IO sets.
Blaster Devices: -Web Grenade: Now accepts Slow IO sets. -Field Operative: Now accepts Endurance Modification IO sets.
-Blaster Ice Manipulation, Frigid Protection: Now accepts Endurance Modification IO sets. -Blaster Mental Manipulation, Scare: Now is correctly typed as a ranged attack rather than melee. -Defender, Corruptor, and Mastermind Traps, Web Grenade: Now accepts Slow IO sets. -Medicine pool, Injection: Now accepts Tohit Debuff and Accurate Tohit Debuff IO sets. -Presence pool, Pacify: Now accepts Endurance Reduction enhancements. -Scrapper, Stalker, Brute, and Tanker Bio Armor, Parasitic Aura: Now accepts Endurance Reduction enhancements. -Scrapper, Brute, and Tanker Radiation Melee, Irradiated Ground: Now accepts Defense Debuff enhancements, Defence Debuff and Accurate Defense Debuff IO sets, and ATO sets. -Scrapper, Stalker, and Brute Broad Sword, Scrapper and Brute Katana, Stalker Ninja Blade: All defense debuff effects now correctly have a 100% chance to trigger instead of 99.8%. -Scrapper, Stalker, Brute, and Tanker Electric Armor, Lightning Reflexes: Fixed missing jumpspeed and jumpheight slow resistance. -Scrapper, Stalker, Brute, and Tanker Super Reflexes, Quickness: Fixed missing jumpspeed and jumpheight slow resistance.
-Arachnos Soldier Training and Gadgets, Mental Training: Fixed missing jumpspeed and jumpheight slow resistance. -Arachnos Widow Widow Teamwork, Mental Training: Fixed missing jumpspeed and jumpheight slow resistance.
Controller and Dominator Wind Control: -Wind Shear: No longer accepts ATOs, as it does not have any mez effects. -Wind Shear: Corrected endurance cost to 1.04 end/s (Dominator only). -Breathless: No longer accepts slow IO sets, as it does not have an enhanceable slow effect.
-Blaster, Defender, and Corruptor Beam Rifle, Overcharge: Fixed the erroneous damage delay on this power.
-Scrapper and Stalker Mu Mastery, Zapp: Damage significantly increased; this power was unintentionally doing much less damage than it should have been.
Progress for Donations (updated daily) Goal: $1443.00 Total: $1443.00
100%
Evening all. It's that time once again. The bill for the COH Rebirth servers are now due. (They took a long time to generate this time.) Let's get into what we're doing and how to fund.
Planned Bill
This is the currently issued bill:
There is one new charge that is being added:
- Ryzen - 4 Core / 32GB Ram / 240GB SSD @ $60/mo (So the bill PLUS $360.) This will be the new home for the git repository where the Rebirth codebase is stored. Currently, we have the Git repository stored on the test servers box which tends to cause hang ups and other performance problems on the Test server network itself.
This will cause the entirety of the bill to be $1443.00 for the period of six months.
How to Donate
Currently PayPal is how we collect donations. (You do not need to make a PayPal account and can even donate anonymously.)
DONATIONS CLOSED!!
If you wish to make a payment outside of PayPal, please contact me via forum or Discord DM.
The bill's deadline is 09/01/2021 which leaves just under two weeks to pay the bill. This link will remain active until either the deadline OR when double the bill's amount has been collected.
Questions and Answers If you have questions about the donation drive, please use this thread to submit them or you can have a discussion with me in private on Discord/forum DMs.
Our weekly maintenance has taken a bit longer than usual but the data copy has been completed. Test server now contains the live server database and has been relaunched with no problems. (You may see an occasional delay as maps are still not auto launching, trying to get that worked on in the middle of the week.)
Additionally, `580` players have been granted :paragon: tokens for the week for logging in the last week. Go and use them wisely.
Lastly, we're announcing a special PTS test for a Hamidon raid stress test on the server (being organized by Galvanized Decree). As a special reward, since Hami's are rare here at Rebirth, any person defeating Hamidon on PTS can have their rewards retroactively applied to their live account. The rules for this will be announced on Wednesday but in short: defeat Hami, screen cap your completion and reward screen, notify me (either via forums DM or DM to @PPD Drone#3917, please not both), gain rewards about two weeks after (since I have to manually apply it). That simple. And at the risk of shooting myself in the foot and making more work... YES, you can run it multiple times on multiple characters on your account (see full rules Wednesday). HOWEVER, the rewards are NOT transferable OFF that account. (ie: I complete Hami on retched1, I cannot transfer the rewards to retched2. **__NO EXCEPTIONS__**). This will only apply to the Hami's ran on PTS on Saturday 8/21/2021 EST.
We're about a month away from the next release... please join in on the PTS test as soon as you can.
That's all the updates we have for now. Again, I'll be back to announce the rules for the Hami Rush Wednesday. For now, enjoy the game and happy hunting.
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1. Real money trading (RMT) is disallowed. Any form of selling any in-game good or service is grounds for your account to be banned from the server.
2. Any form of harassment (whether in /broadcast, /tells, etc.) is not tolerated. If you're going above and beyond to be an ass, and it's reported, your game account may be suspended or banned.
3. Multiboxing (or using one or more machines to play on the game server at one time) will be allowed at the sysadmin's discretion. (If it's causing the servers to lag or for performance to suffer for others, GMs reserve the right to kick for such reason. Any attempt to get around this kick will result in the multi account and the "main" account to be banned.)
4. Making new accounts to avert kicks or bans will result in permanent bans from the game server (and where applicable, from the COH Discord server.)
5. Taking advantage of a bug is bad. If you discover a bug inadvertently, please report it to our Discord by using the steps below. If it can be repeated, and isn't already a known bug, the admins of the server will grant you the elusive "Bug Hunter" badge.
As part of the datacenter upgrades, we'll have to physically shut off our boxes later TONIGHT at around 10 PM EST. Test server has been shutdown at the moment and that move is taking place currently.
The planned outage will only take about 10-30 minutes. (I'd rather give everyone the heads up as opposed to snapping them off on a whim.)
During this period, all game services will be rendered unavailable.
EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE: ALL CLEAR "Shouldn't take too long," my foot... I swear, that's the last time I give an ETA in an announcement, so help me...
Oh, hey! Didn't see you guys there! So uh... the game is back up! :partying_face: Merit prices appear to be correct, and we also have a sweet little bonus in the form of working Radiation Melee and Radiation Armor animations!
To make up for this crazy 24 hours, we will be increasing XP, Inf, and Prestige rates to 3x on Friday, June 4th at 9 PM EST. These boosted rates will last until the standard reset on Sunday, June 6th at 9 PM EST. That's a full 48 hours of triple rates. We appreciate you all sticking with us through the chaos. As always, happy gaming! :video_game:
"The Sky is Falling" (Admiral Sutter, Hero, 20-40) "A Clamor for the People" (Penelope Yin, Hero, 20-25) "Tree of Thorns" (Tresparciel, Villain, 34-44) "Time's Arrow" (Imperious, Co-Op, 35-50+)
06/07/2021 - 06/13/2021
"A Tangled Plot" (Katie Hannon, Hero, 30-34) "Soul of the Woodsman" (Numina, Hero, 35-40) "The Temple of the Waters" (SFO Renault, Villain, 25-30) "The Lady Grey Task Force" (The Lady Grey, Co-Op, 45-50+)
06/14/2021 - 06/20/2021
"Return of the Reichsman" (Dr. Kahn, Hero, 45-50+) "Following Countess Crey" (Manticore, Hero, 30-35) "The Fire and the Flames" (Mortimer Kal, Villain, 20-40) "The Praetorian Offensive" (Tin Mage Mark II, Co-Op, 50+)
06/21/2021 - 06/27/2021
"The MegaMech Cometh" (Ernesto Hess, Hero, 25-30) "Citadel's Children" (Citadel, Hero, 25-30) "The Crystal of Serafina" (Ice Mistral, Villain, 35-40) "Alpha Strike" (Apex, Co-Op, 50+)
Also remember that this is the last week of the Speedrun Challenges. If you wish to submit for any of these WSTs, this is the last chance to do before we pull back sanctioned speedruns to improve the process.
[This is just a copy of the full announcement from the Discord Server.]
We have managed to put the pieces back together successfully, and there are no big issues found. (We're still hunting for speel cheek spell check bugs, so please continue to report those.)
There are a total of 674 :paragon: tokens given out to players this. Look for them and spend them wisely. (Next week is the two token week for those that log in on the week and in the last month.)
Now on to some updates for the community:
Let's talk about speedruns. Needless to say, it has been fun watching various members of the community completely demolish everything in the COH Taskforce/Strikeforce lists with Flash-like speed. We started this originally to hand out a ton of AE tickets to prop up the stagnant economy with salvage at the time and then it took off like gangbusters. Unfortunately, various factors have arisen which caused us to reach the decision to pull back on the checkered flags for a bit. In light of this, from now until June 6th reset, this will be the LAST week of sanctioned speedrunning here on COH: Rebirth FOR NOW. We aim to reintroduce a more formal system for speedruns sometime around the release of Ri2. Any members of the community who have rewards pending from a recent run, will still be issued their rewards. (Be sure that at a minimum, your team leader has submitted a screenshot of the final clear screen with the names of your team members and your desired reward along with the actual time to completion.)
Now about the anniversary. The server's official launch date was May 17th, 2019. Normally, whenever an anniversary comes around in COH, an anniversary badge is awarded. Due to "technical" issues, we failed to commemorate the FIRST anniversary properly. Rumor has it they're available in bargain bins throughout Paragon, Rogue Island, and some fell through the cracks and ended up in Praetoria. However, we fixed the issue and from now until June 27th, 2021 reset: any character who logs in during this month will receive the newly minted Rebirth Second Anniversary badge shown below. So be sure to look out for that. (To any live players: no, there won't a commemorative pop up on screen but you know to look.)
With all of that being said, the server is now officially open for Rebirth Issue 1: Edition 2. Feel free to see the #live-patch-notes . PTS will remain online as this is a "minor" update. (We only shut off the server on a full MAJOR update.) Do note that since this is an Edition: You will need to revalidate your files using your launcher.
Hope to see you in the city and happy hunting to you all.
Evening and good morning. Welcome to the first State of the Game of City of Heroes: Rebirth!
I want to take the time to thank everyone who has helped with coding and especially those of you who have been playing on our PTS shard "Almost Tested". It is with the work of the volunteer coders and you the players that we were able to create Rebirth Issue #1: Guardians Rising. We've rested over the last two weeks and now we're starting the trek towards Rebirth Issue #2: [REDACTED]. (For those that get lost with the terminology: Issues are big major game changes. Editions are smaller patches.)
During our publishing push towards issue one, the Rebirth Dev team grew significantly. I’d like to take a moment to welcome Super Hero, Yikes, Zytonis, Thagdal, and NogardAirwing to the team and a hearty welcome back to Plutocracy who has returned from sabbatical. They join our very active dev team, led by erpmario: Farm Tank, El Bee, Xerephus, Profit, SilverAgeFan, Gothic Alpha, Nekrovile, Last Sanctum, Daigotsu, Jumpstar, and myself retched. Also, a special thank you to our mod team, our GMs, and all of our dedicated community members who do so much to make Rebirth the wonderful place it is to play. (Like GM Loriean who has been king on making sure that we get all of your bug reports and spelling errors over to the appropriate internal dev boards for adjusting.)
Looking forward to Rebirth Issue 2, I’d like to describe our efforts across four key components of the gaming experience: Gameplay, Gameworld, Powers and Archetypes, and Cosmetics.
Let’s start off with Gameplay:
I do a lot of daily reading of community comments. Whether it be here on Rebirth’s Discord, Rebirth’s Forum, the COH and COV subreddits on Reddit, or other community Discords. And one of the major complaints that I hear about is how "hard the grind is for Rebirth." As a matter of fact, that was one of the major talking points in several of our internal discussions.
So let’s talk about what exactly is happening behind the scenes. First, the basic gameplay loop as it stands now is: You complete a length activity, you get rewarded with Reward Merits, then you get some shiny. (IOs mainly.) The chief complaint that myself and the Rebirth team have been reading is that the grind for goods is, plainly put, god awful.
We realize that our player’s time is valuable and shouldn’t be wasted on a punishingly slow grind. So we’re looking at a few things to help alleviate that pain while still maintaining an enjoyable sense of progression, investment, achievement, and excitement. Dev and active community member El Bee is leading a major grind and economy overhaul with the help of many developers, including Hat Ghost, Farm Tank, and Profit:
Adjusting vendor prices. One sure way to get high-end enhancements is to save up different in-game currencies and purchase them. Right now, the prices of everything vendor-wise was balanced around a for-profit gaming model at $14.99 a month until the game’s eventual sunset. Naturally, this meant Paragon Studios set reward merit (RM) prices exceptionally high, and diminished rewards earned by repeating tasks too quickly, as a way to broaden what activities players pursued rather than have them farm one particular activity. (An uncommon IO would cost about 50 RMs for example instead of making a certain IO available from a particular activity.) As part of our pass in the Game Grind Rework phase, we’re pulling down the cost of these items by about 50%. Additionally, Purple and PVP IOs are some of the rarest and most sought after items on our server—we’re going to go ahead and allow players to buy them using RMs. Lastly, we’re throwing some of the rewards into the Astrals and Empyreans vendors and even Hero/Villain merits. You can see the planned work down below.
IO Reward Type
Reward Merits Cost
Astral Merit Cost
Empyrean Merit Cost
Alignment Merit Cost
Uncommon Normal
50 30
N/A
N/A
N/A
Uncommon Special
75 60
N/A - 16 N/A - 12
N/A
1
Rare Normal
125-165 75
16 12
N/A
1
Rare Special
200-220 125
32 24
N/A
2
Purple Normal
N/A 400
N/A 128
40 30
20 8
Purple Special
N/A 400
N/A 128
40 30
20 8
PVPIO Normal
N/A 400
N/A 128
50-60 30
25 8
PVPIO Special
N/A 400
N/A 128
60-70 30
30-35 8
Explaining the table above:
"Normal" is an IO piece that boosts no more than three attributes. (eg. Bonesnap: Acc/Dmg, Gladiator: Dam/End/Rech). A "Special" is an IO piece that modifies more than three stats or has a chance to proc a special effect. (eg. Blistering Cold: Acc/Dmg/End/Rech, Performance Shifter: Chance for +End).
Not all Uncommon Specials are available via Astral Merit vendors. This update will not change which ones will be available but will adjust the price of those that ARE available.
Where there is a full range of values, eg. 200-250, means that all recipes were available at that range. The value listed below that means all recipes will be available at the same price.
Where there is no change noted, you will see no strikethrough. But where there IS a change, there will be a strike through value to represent what is currently price and underneath will be the proposed change.
Some of these changes are currently live on the PTS.
Reduce base prestige costs: So, this is another stickler for people. Right now, the base prestige amounts are currently based on the size of the plots rather than per item. We made the change back to plot-based rent as part of our long-term plan for bases. But prices for upgrading your plots are still far too high. We’re looking at adjusting both the costs AND the exchange rate of Inf from the vendor at City Hall/Grandville/etc. This adjustment helps pave the way for some much more exciting plans we have for player designed spaces in our game!
Purple and PvP IO Drops: What’s one of the big things you do on your 50’s? You grind for purples, right? Currently, only level 47 and up mobs drop these recipes. As part of this big grind rebalance, we want every player taking an average paced route to 50 to have the chance to earn 1 to 3 purple recipes naturally. Also, we want players to feel motivated to join lowbies in lower-level content and not feel like they are missing out on valuable purple farming time. With this change, any Lieutenant or Boss level mob that might drop a vanilla IO recipe will also have a small chance to drop a Purple, starting from level 7 on up. You can slot them (on a character that is Level 50), sell them, or swap them to your latest character. That’s up to you. We just want to get a few more purple recipes out into the wild. The same goes for PvP recipes which we have some very specific plans for we’ll be detailing soon.
Alignment System Changes: We noticed quite a lot of complaints about the number of missions required before receiving a tip that allows you to adjust the alignment. We hear you and we agree. We still believe in the narrative-driven mechanic of the alignment system that Paragon designed--we just think it takes a little too long. The plan will be (during RI2) to reduce the tip system from 10 to 5 as well as cut the cooldown between changing phases.)
Additionally, using Inf to AE Tickets is also being looked at into an option. This is pretty much self explanatory.
We’re always looking at improving the back-end of the game, sometimes with small changes, other times with necessary overhauls. Every dev cycle gives us better insight into how to better optimize performance and eliminate bugs, including ones that have persisted since Live. We have some major projects we are currently considering for Issue 3 and we’ll reveal more as our plans solidify!
(You can click on any image on this thread to expand it.)
Part of what makes a classic MMO like Rebirth special is a vibrant Gameworld, filled with cool, varied locations and complex, interwoven stories. We here at Rebirth have big dreams for the distant future including new arcs, new mission maps, and even new game zones. We also have deep respect for the lore shaped by the many hands and voices that have worked on this game since its inception all the way back in 1999. We intend to respect that lore while still moving towards projects that give you new places to visit, characters to meet, and stories to play through.
But it’s going to take some baby steps to get to that new content. Some of these steps are there to help our dev team get a better handle on the relevant systems. Other projects are structural renovations that are intended to facilitate a better, more fluid game and lay a foundation for an exciting future!
Ouroboros Revamp:Rebirth dev Xerephus will be leading up some big changes to Ouroboros. Currently, villains and heroes visit virtually identical versions of the same zone, just with different stories. In game, Ouro is a zone outside of time. A place by existing game canon, both the villainous and heroic visit at some point in their career. After careful consideration, we’ve decided this minizone should be a cross alignment hub, where characters of all alignments can cross paths, interact, and even roleplay if you’d like. The stories a character can access will still be alignment dependent, but the players you might encounter now represent the entire population of the shard. As an added bonus, this means Ouro will now be a reliable transit hub for both Rogues and Vigilantes, regardless of what side they are currently playing on.
Solo TF/SF Options: Sometimes it’s a quiet morning on the Rebirth and you’re not finding that full team you were after. Maybe you want to put your character to the test. Or maybe you’re just a determined soloist. Fear not! One future renovation, led by developer Plutocracy, which we hope to rollout within the next few issues are solo-friendly versions of common legacy Task Forces and Strike Forces. These versions will be made available strictly from the Ouro crystals, will include all the content and rewards (including badges!) you are familiar with except for modifications to multi glowies and team size requirements. Meanwhile, the gameworld contacts with their team size requirements will remain unchanged. The merged Ouroboros zone should make this a viable alternative not just for solo TFs but also for small team runs, no more need for fill characters!
Legacy Contact Touch Up: Story team member Jumpstar will be working this summer to make a clear catalogue of all in game contacts, clean up the contact introduction process, especially amongst some of the oldest blueside content. This will serve as a foundation for revisiting the classic origin-based adventure paths. These paths are filled with stories deeply rooted in the game lore, often flowing one into the next at each five level bracket. Unfortunately, a few of these paths were never fully finished. Longterm, Jumpstar would like to see those gaps filled here on Rebirth along with a robust pass modernizing some of the arcs with newer mission technology utilized in later Paragon content.
Striga Ambiance Touch Up: Striga, that wartorn island of horrors! But why is your sky so pleasant? Art team SilverAgeFan will be spending a time during the Issue 2 dev cycle creating a new custom skybox and night day cycle tailored to Striga Island. Expect colors and lighting more fitting to horror and war comic genres that inspired the zone. By Ri2, we want Striga to be a place you take your characters to for great screenshots!
Level 10 Costume Slot Missions: We’re working to bring you new in game missions. And we’re not ashamed to start small and get it right. We also know there are currently 4 permanently locked costume slots on Rebirth Live. We want to get one of those costume slots back in your hands. But not for free, you cheeky monkies! We’re going to make you defeat 15 Hellions for it! Or was that Contaminated? You’re going to need to check in with your Atlas Park tailor or the Facemaker in Mercy for this one. Or you could just check in with Jumpstar or SAF who are teaming up on this small but fun Gameworld improvement.
Beyond these outlined projects for the near future, you can see by our Gameworld roadmap we have a number of initiatives plotted out to keep bringing you access to more content, always building up towards that big prize of new content that continues to tell stories befitting this multiverse we have all come to love.
Issue 1 brought the new Guardian archetype to Rebirth. Looking at Issue 2 and beyond, we have a lot of exciting new things in the works for you all. Here are the more immediate highlights we can reveal at this time:
Guardian ATOs: We know you all love attuned Archetype Origin enhancements found in game. And you’ve all been askin when these are coming out. Ri2. Two full sets with unique procs are well underway. You’re going to be able to get them from all the same sources you’ve come to expect in game including the Super Packs and specific vendors.
New Powersets:Super Hero is hard at work to bring you two new guardian secondaries. Tactical Training gives us an option for natural themed combat-trained characters. And Sonic Composition builds on the established mechanics of existing sonic sets throughout the game. Meanwhile, Hat Ghost is polishing up Sonic Aura, a defensive set intended for scrappers, brutes, and stalkers. And Xerephus is leading the effort on Marksman, a sniper themed set for our first fully original ranged powerset.
Tanker Touch Up: Developers Farm Tank, Profit, El Bee, and Hat Ghost are teaming up for an exciting set of meaningful but measured revisions on the classic tank AT. This includes an aggro cap increase for tanks over the maximum 17 that all ATs currently experience in game. They are also taking a close look at how bruising, the tanker inherent power works. They are examining if it is applicable to have it be applied from more than the first power and use case scenarios
Alternate Teleportation FX: We’ve set a modest project to create an alternate set of smokey FX for the entire TP pool. This project is going to help us figure out best practices for several future powers projects that will demand much more collaboration between the Powers and Art Teams. Super Hero and Xerephus will be consulting SilverAgeFan and Zytonis to get the job done. And the results will give you all more options when designing your next ‘porter.
Winter Super Pack Completion: You all love ATOs. You all love the Summer Os. You all love the Winter Os. We do too. But we don’t love the Winter Super Pack! Why? Because it isn’t finished. Paragon shut down before they could complete this pack! The card graphics are missing! The enhancements all use placeholder graphics! And the stupid candy canes are so tangled in the spaghetti that they only award 1 when they should award 5. So, I, retched, have made it my personal mission to get this damn pack fixed and finished, ready for bug free distribution by Ri3 at the latest!
More and Better Character Animations: We have a new art team member, Zytonis, who joined us specifically as an animator. They are currently working with Super Hero and Plutocracy on some top-secret projects. Along the way, Zytonis along with SAF will be working during our Ri3 cycle to bring you all more options for character customization. And Xerephus will be joining this effort, taking a focused look at redraw in current animations and helping to eliminate or minimize it wherever possible.
Dual Blades rework:Hat Ghost, our resident balance expert, will be taking a close look at the Dual Blades combo system. This is the oldest and most rigid combo system in the game. Our goal is to make it less unforgiving and cumbersome while keeping the unique flavor of the set intact.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the new Cosmetics options coming your way thanks to our newly expanded art team.
Asymmetric Chests and Hips: This is the big one. We know fans of the game have been asking for this feature since live. We weren’t sure it could be done. But about 3 weeks before we launched Ri1, we got SilverAgeFan to start looking into the feasibility of pulling this off. When early experiments showed it would be tough but not impossible, we decided to go for it. The entire system is about half finished as I write this. As soon as we can, we want to get this up to the test server as a core system so all of you can help us test it and make sure all your favorite costume options are there working as intended.
New pants and chest options:SAF was adamant if we were going to do this new system, we should include a couple genre staples that CoH fans have wanted for years. So this revamp of chests and hips includes a set of classic golden age style jodhpurs for all three models. And female characters now have the option of a more modest look with the single panel tights.
Glowing and animated body skins: This is one of those requests I’ve seen over and over. And we’ve heard you. Once the new asymmetric torso system is on test, SAF will be moving into working on a set of awesome glowing and animated skins. I hear there are really cool things coming, so you can now make your favorite Sun-God character and I hear there might even be a new diamond skin or animated chameleon skin, complete with changing colors, coming your way.
Skin sets based on new cape patterns: I’ve seen the screenshots from the costume contests. You’re all loving those new Issue 1 capes. Several of those capes are getting full body patterns for you all to mix and match.
More Diversification: If you’ve played with the new Issue 1 costume options, you might have discovered glove diversification that we added. It’s a surprisingly deep system that allows for literally hundreds of new costume combinations. You can now put gloves on your rock man or glowing bracers on your armored princess. These sorts of options are getting expanded first to chests and hips with Ri2. And then to other parts of the body in future publishes
Upper Body Details:Yikes brings to the team not only their talent but a pile of costume items they’ve been working on for over a year now. Several of these, like the crop top hoodie for female characters don’t quite fit into any existing category. But they go well over tights. We’ve also got the underarm wings designed by SAF coming your way. All of these are going to be available in a new category on certain upper bodies, such as tights and the new single panel tights. Future issues I’m sure will fill out this new option of Upper Body Details with even more new costume parts for your favorite character concepts!
And so much more! I could go on all night about all the crazy ideas our art team is up to, including a library of earring options from SAF, expanded weapon customization Xerephus has been working on, dual auras, increased asymmetry, and a few top-secret projects in the early R&D phases… but you get the idea! We’ve got a lot of things cooking. If you love making costumes for City of Heroes, Rebirth is a great place to be!
Here is a preview of some of Yikes and SilverAgeFan work to come.
Asymmetry in preview.
And here's a whole gallery from Yikes in regards to scarves,
Whew! So as you can see, our dev team is working hard to bring you a lot with Rebirth Issue 2! And this is in addition to all the other offerings of seasonal events; the rolling speed-run season; Sunday Night Fights PvP; GM run costume contests, monster mashes, and scavenger hunts; special boosted XP playtimes; and any events YOU our players might organize and run! I hope you’re as excited about this next year as I am!
As always, if you have any questions comments or concerns, feel free to visit the Discord and post in #suggestions-and-feedback or post up here on the forums. DMs are also open too.
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